The aim of haiku is not beauty; it is something much deeper and wider. it is significance, a poetical significance, “a shock of mild surprise,” that the poet receives when the haiku is born, and the reader when it is reborn in his mind.

R. H. Blyth, Haiku I: Eastern Culture

Haiku finds intensely interesting states of mind that have no relation to beauty at all…

R. H. Blyth, Haiku I: Eastern Culture

After it was dark,
I began to want to change
The way I grafted it.

Issa

not a demon
not a bodhisattva —
a sea-slug

Issa

receiving the dew
from chrysanthemums —
the inkstone comes to life

the stonemason’s
flying sparks flow away —
clear waters

the stonemason
cools his chisel —
clear waters

Buson

discovered again
the path
I never left

Christopher Herold

garden path
the catmint
wherever it wants

Michele Root-Bernstein

evening light
time to start
remembering summer

Patti Niehoff

my sleep too will be owned by daffodils

Réka Nyitrai

I did nothing
about a branch that fell
on the wild azalea

Stephen Small

departing spring
hardly any sky
left in my tree

Bill Kenney

Christmas alone
removing the frozen snow
from the tombstone

Nick Virgilio

caterpillar
atop the rock
the rising tide

William J. Higginson

winter rain —
my father’s grave
so many miles away

Lewis Sanders

full moon –
newts glide through
the Sea of Tranquility

Sara Winteridge

Among these lilies
in Monet’s pond
Basho’s water sound

Sylvia Forges-Ryan

The heaven on earth
a muddy pond becomes
mirroring the stars.

Foster Jewell

a deceased friend
taps me on the shoulder —
plum blossoms falling

Chen-ou Liu

ON READING HAIKU 

Whatever it takes
to write

haiku
it takes almost
as much of
to read

hearing sound
on the page
and seeing shape
in the ear
but then     mostly

just the courage
to let old Basho’s frog

Jump

Elizabeth Searle Lamb